


The Ghost Passenger

by Sci-fi-hero (FireGriffin)



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Gen, Modern AU, Oneshot, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 03:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireGriffin/pseuds/Sci-fi-hero
Summary: Stan drives for Uber after he gets kicked out. One day, he feels an inexplicable but overwhelming dread in his gut, which tells him he should go to Oregon. He doesn't know Ford lives there. He doesn't know why he's going. All he knows is that if he doesn't follow his gut, the dread isn't gonna ever go away.On his way through Oregon, he happens to stop in Gravity Falls, and picks up a mysterious passenger to make an extra buck. But when the voice of the passenger grows familiar, Stan realizes this passenger isn't who they seem.





	The Ghost Passenger

Stanley cranked up the heater in his car and punched the address into his phone GPS. He’d been driving for five hours now, and he was due to arrive in Oregon in a few minutes. With a satisfied nod and an involuntary shiver, he hit the gas and kept going down the road. The speed limit was painfully slow (thirty-five? On a long stretch of totally empty, nicely paved asphalt? Anything was legal when the cops weren’t around, anyway. He was doing at  _ least _ seventy, and that  _ still  _ felt too slow.

 

Normally at this time of night he was driving passengers back and forth, getting notification after notification on his Uber app. Being an Uber driver was great. He’d get just enough money for food and gas, and sleep during the slow hours in the back of the car. But a few days ago, an awful feeling of dread had clawed its way into his gut, and hadn’t let go of him since. Stan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t like to think about it.

 

He and Ford hadn’t seen each other in years. Almost a decade, actually (not that he was keeping track). Ford was ass-deep in whatever fuck-off expensive prestigious colleges he was able to get into recently, and Stan? Well, he’d been making it just fine on his own. Sure, there were some cold nights, but he was out under the stars, with no one to tell him what to do, which was arguably way better than slaving away under the thumb of some school board (who was he kidding he hated this but he couldn’t say it he couldn’t think it he had to keep focusing on the road).

 

At any rate, Stanley had felt a nameless uneasiness deep in his gut a few days ago, and it’d gotten so bad he wasn’t able to sleep. He wasn’t able to keep driving for Uber. It’d gotten so acidic and anxious in his stomach that he needed to go  _ immediately _ , to drop everything (which wasn’t much) and follow the thought that this unnamed anxiety put into his head:  _ Go to Oregon. _

 

Where in Oregon, he didn’t know. Why in Oregon, he also didn’t know. Honestly, he didn’t give a fuck about either of those answers. All he knew was that he and Ford didn’t have twin sense, their allergies just acted up in unison sometimes, and Ford was okay, Ford was fine, he didn’t even  _ care _ if Ford was okay, he was just following his gut to Oregon for no rational reason, and then maybe he’d strike gold or pull off a big heist or something and retire somewhere in Canada and that was really what the ominous throat-constricting urgency that tingled throughout his entire body meant.

 

He’d picked up some strange customers before. Drunk women who threw up in the back seat; people who wanted to tell him his life story and then expected him to tell them his; families of four who argued for ten minutes about who had to sit in the middle; there was no shortage of irritating and bizarre encountered enabled by being an Uber driver. But through it all, he reminded himself he was just happy to have a car and a quick way to make cash. 

 

Eventually, the dim lights of a distant town came into view. Stan glanced at the gas meter and shrugged, taking the exit going into the town. He didn’t have any money left for gas, but he knew how to steal some, especially in a small town like this. 

This place really was tiny. It was like he could see the whole town from here. It was hard to see through the dark night, but he could make out some oddly shaped cliffs in the background. To his right, he could barely make out a sign saying “Welcome to Gravity Falls, Oregon!”

No, that couldn’t be right. He’d just  _ read _ the sign. The sign hadn’t whispered its name in his ear aloud. Stan clutched the steering wheel more tightly, shaking off the drowsy feeling he got when he was so hungry he didn’t feel hungry anymore.

 

Hmm. Maybe it would be a good idea to play it safe around here. This place gave him the creeps. And he could see some people milling about on the streets, too... Stan leaned forward and switched on his Uber availability. Just a couple of rides, and he’d have enough for some gas and a sandwich. Then he could hurry outta here.

 

The little red light turned on under the gas meter, signifying that he was almost out. “Shit,” Stan whispered (because this town made him feel like he had to whisper, especially in the middle of the night/early morning, and with so few lampposts around). He pulled off to the side of the road, beside a strip mall where a cluster of stores that were closed for the night stood eerily.

 

Stan didn’t put the car into park mode. He just kept his foot on the brake pedal, waiting tensely. He didn’t know  _ why _ he felt like he’d need to make a quick getaway, but that kind of situation  _ did  _ tend to happen to him out of nowhere, so he didn’t question it. It was so  _ quiet _ around here. Not that 2am was a particularly busy time, but didn’t this place have any bars? Any late-night workers just getting off of work? Not even a bus route?? 

 

Stan was about to pull away from the curb when there was a loud knock on his car window. Fighting back the jolt of fear that had just shot through his body, Stanley looked at the passenger-side door. A shadowy figure stood with their face almost pressed against the glass. Stan tried to make out features, but this street was so dark, he couldn’t make out a single facial feature.

 

With a gulp, Stan cracked the window down a little. “Need a ride?”

 

He hated how his voice cracked at the end. Why was he so damn scared? It was just a guy. Stan knew how to hold his own in a fight. And besides, he was the one with a car. There was nothing to worry about. And yet, the nauseous feeling in his gut flared up to the worst it ever had been. Oregon. Why the fuck had he driven all the way out to Oregon? Something about the featureless face made him a mix between terrified and sad. When he noticed his hands trembling against the steering wheel, he tightened his grip again, willing the overwhelming nausea to go away.

 

The figure nodded.

 

Stan cleared his throat. “Uh... it’ll be fifty bucks. I’m the only taxi you’ll get in town.”

 

Again, the figure nodded. Really? He wasn’t going to haggle over prices? Some of the terrible dread that was creeping up around his throat seemed to lessen. One ride for a whole fifty bucks! He could get a meal, some gas,  _ and _ a better coat for that much! Not that any stores with good coats would be open at this time of night.

 

Stan unlocked the doors, and the stranger got into the back seat.

 

“So, where are ya heading, bud?” Stan didn’t feel dread anymore, per se. It was more like background noise compared to the lump growing in his throat. Goddamnit, why did he feel like he was gonna cry?? What  _ was _ this? What was  _ any _ of this?

 

The stranger cleared his throat quietly. “A friend’s house.”

 

Stan sighed internally. What was he, stupid? “I mean the address.”

 

“Oh.” The stranger’s voice was so  _ quiet _ . He sounded like he’d swallowed a blanket, with how muffled he was. After a pause, he told Stan the address, and he typed it into his GPS. Ten minutes away. Not bad, for fifty bucks.

 

Several minutes after he’d started the drive, Stan realized there was something familiar about the stranger’s voice in his back seat. Stan glanced over his shoulder at him once or twice, but his timing was always off. The stranger’s face continued to be buried in shadow.

 

From his posture, Stanley could guess a  _ little _ bit about the guy. He was so far hunched over, it looked like he was gonna fall asleep by leaning on the back of the seat in front of him. And his knee kept bouncing, but without any energy. All in all, he looked even more miserable and cold and tired than Stanley felt.

 

Several times Stan opened his mouth to make conversation, but the questions always died in his throat. There wasn’t just something familiar about the stranger--he was also inexplicably intimidating. After the ride’s more than halfway through, Stan gives up on trying to talk. It’s 2am. He can understand a guy who doesn’t want to think about anything or talk to anyone at 2 in the morning. He’s done it himself countless times, deflecting a chatty customer’s conversation until the drive descended into silence.

 

It occured to Stan that this town still gave him the creeps. He was entering into a residential neighborhood now, with apartment buildings on one side and the beginning of a vast expanse of suburbs on the other. The address stopped him on the suburbs side, at a run-down house that might have been charming during daylight hours. Right now, it just looked like something out of a horror movie, with its “Keep Out” sign and boarded up windows- no, Stan decided, this place would look just as creepy in the daytime. It was illuminated by a single flickering lamppost, which seemed especially fitting.

 

At the front of the lawn, where all the grass was so dead it looked colorless, there was a mailbox with the name “Fiddleford H. McGucket” written in sharpie and sloppily crossed out. Several crossed-out eyes were drawn on the exterior of it, too.

 

Stan gave the passenger in the back seat a side-eyed glance. “Is this the right place?”

 

He nodded, and without a word or so much as a hesitation, began to exit the car.

 

“ _ Hey!” _ Stan yelled, practically flying out the driver’s seat, over the car’s hood, and onto the sidewalk where the stranger was walking (so leisurely, too--it was like he didn’t even realize what he was doing). It looked like... it looked like the stranger was  _ gliding _ across the ground, because his shoulders weren’t moving and his legs weren’t moving and yet he was moving almost too quickly for Stan to catch him without sprinting. Within a second, and using all the courage he could manage, Stan reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist.

 

Observation #1 under the lamplight: he had six fingers.

 

Observation #2: Stan now realized why the voice sounded familiar.

 

Observation #3: His hand passed straight through the man’s wrist like it was nothing but icy mist, and Stan almost fell forward before regaining his balance.

 

Observation #4: This series of realizations was hitting Stanley so hard that he almost couldn’t- just  _ couldn’t _ \- when the stranger looked over his shoulder at Stan in alarm, and he could finally see his face under the light of the lamp, complete with wide eyes and horribly smudged horn rimmed glasses and the classic Pines family nose and the same chin as him and the same look of shock that sent Stan reeling backwards, letting go of the empty air ( _ that wasn’t empty air, that was his brother’s hand, why wasn’t he corporeal, what was going on) _ .

 

“Stanford?” Stan choked out, feeling chills all over his body and not just because it’s freezing out here. He can’t stop staring. Almost a decade of no contact, and now here he was, standing inches away from Ford for the first time in almost a decade, and he looked so  _ lost _ and  _ awful _ and why was he in Gravity Falls? Did they get the same irrational onset of dread that wouldn’t leave their gut? Had Ford driven here? What about his college life? Was he-- had he been living the same way Stan had, and he hadn’t even known it?

 

The questions were pushed to the back of his mind by a rush of warmth coming to his face, and the lump in his throat got worse, and he was going to cry like some kind of little kid--

 

Ford’s eyes widened. “Stanley?” he replied, in the same shocked tone as Stanley. This time his voice wasn’t muffled at all. It was as clear as day, and it sounded so familiar and yet so different, Stan wanted to listen to that voice on repeat for forever. He had  _ missed _ this stupid idiot, god damnit, and was he going to punch him or hug him? Or both?

Stan started to step forward, still undecided on what he would do once he reached Ford, but before he could decide, Ford was gone.

 

Just... gone.

 

One second, he’d been standing there, drinking in Stan’s face in awe and confusion, and the next, it was like he’d imagined the whole thing.

 

Stan shook his head. Hallucinations, really?? He was used to staying up all night. Why would he be hallucinating  _ now _ ? Was it a sign? Was he high? Stan pursed his lips. And why here? What did Fiddleford McGucket have to do with any of this?

 

For a second, he thought about walking up to the front door and asking, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that was a stupid idea and he should just move on and forget this whole strange experience.

 

~

 

The next morning, Stan thought his dread was gone for a second, but it had only grown stronger overnight.  _ Alright, that’s it, _ Stan huffed.  _ I’m figuring out what the fuck is going on. _ If Ford was in town (not that he’d actually seen him, but maybe he still was. Maybe the world would let him have one small miracle), all he had to do was ask one of the locals where he lived. In small towns like this, everyone knew who everyone was. He could ask around and be out of here in one hour, tops.

 

As it turned out, no one here had ever heard the name “Stanford Pines” before. Stan started to figure that they were right and Ford was just not here at all and he’d imagined everything last night, until he finally asked a teenager in a Dusk-to-Dawn uniform about it. 

 

“I dunno man, but I’ve seen this guy who looks just like you come out here from the woods, like three years ago. You know the spooky cabin out there? I bet he came from there. I bet he  _ lives _ there, and eats kids!”

 

Stan almost died at the words “spooky cabin.” If Ford didn’t live in a spooky cabin in the woods where teenagers made up ghost stories about him, he’d sell his left limbs.  _ Of course _ you do, Stanley thought with a wry smile as he made his way up to the so-called “spooky cabin.”  _ Of course  _ you would build a weird house for yourself in the middle of nowhere.

 

Humming to himself as he went, Stan finally pulled into the driveway of a towering cabin with a steeply slanted roof. From a distance, it looked like a big ol’ triangle. After driving past so many “keep out” and “beware” signs, Stan was more than a little surprised to find the front door standing wide open.

 

After calling out a polite “hello?”, Stan went inside. The mess of sciencey gizmos and whatever-thingies strewn across the floor made the place barely navigable.  _ Yup, this is Sixer’s, alright. _ Stan would’ve recognized his brother’s particular brand of nerdy messiness anywhere. Stan raised an eyebrow as he noticed a blood splatter that stretches... pretty far across the room, actually... as his eyes followed it, he wondered what Ford did to spill so much blood everywhere... what kind of creature did he wrestle with while trying to study it? Or maybe-

 

Oh.

 

Stanley felt the room spin. Stanley wobbled a little, but felt more frozen than anything else. The dread that had been eating him alive for the past few days had suddenly vanished. Now, there was a new kind of horror replacing every particle in his body. He was going to dissolve. He was going to evaporate into thin air and never exist again, so he wouldn’t have to keep looking at Ford’s dead body lying spread-eagled on a bright yellow carpet. 

 

Spread-eagled, face-down on the yellow carpet. Ford was unmistakable, even from the back. Even with a trenchcoat (nearly torn to shreds, but he wasn’t going to engage with that thought), and even with-- especially with his glasses askew, and the lenses completely shattered, and the palms of his upturned hands weren’t red, they were burgundy, they were almost  _ black _ from the dried blood and all the glass shards jammed into them.

 

Stan counted the fingers, still not moving or breathing or thinking. He counted the fingers, just to be sure. There were six.

 

Ford was lying spread-eagled, face-down on the yellow carpet. Except he couldn’t be, because that would mean he wasn’t alive. Because that would mean--judging from the color of his skin, and the oxidation of the blood, the blood that had stained the carpet orange splattered and dripped everywhere and onto everything--judging from the--judging from it all, he’d been dead for at least a week. And--and Stanley hadn’t--hadn’t he just seen Ford alive and walking last night? The only thing that had started up around a week ago was his inexplicable, heart-stopping, blood-curdling, nameless dread.

 

_ Oh. _

 

Stan still couldn’t move. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move, until he could. Until he was walking forward against his will, driven by the need to know  _ how _ , the need to know  _ why _ ...

 

Stan turned the body over quickly, squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn’t see how stiffly it turned. Like he’d been frozen solid. Why was it so damn cold in here, anyway? It was almost colder than it was outside.

 

When he turned over the body, Stan gagged.  _ Triangles everywhere. _ Big ones, little ones, messy ones, neat ones... all carved directly into Ford’s face and chest and stomach. 

 

And just like that, Stanley could move again. He sprinted into the kitchen, almost tripping several times, and collapsed at the kitchen table. All the energy had been drained out of him. The only thing he did for several minutes was breathe quick, shallow breaths, and stare out the window at the birch trees in the distance, because if he closed his eyes he would  _ see him again _ -

 

At some point, Stan woke up. He hadn’t realized he’d even fallen asleep, but he must have needed the rest. He felt well enough to string two words together in his head, at least.

 

He felt well enough to consider the fact that just one night ago, he had been visited by Stanford’s ghost. And with a burst of hysterical laughter, he remembered that Ford hadn’t even bothered to pay.  _ Some ghost he makes _ , Stan thought to himself, trembling without noticing that he was trembling. 

 

He felt sick thinking about all the things he’d have to do now. For one thing, he’d have to bury the body. He couldn’t afford a funeral. He’d have to dig a hole himself. Hell, there was plenty of empty space in the front yard alone. That wouldn’t even be the worst part. After the burial, he’d have to hunt down whoever killed Stanford. He would have to get to the bottom of this bullshit mystery, and carve so many triangles into whoever murdered Ford that they would never walk again. And  _ then _ he would have to change his name again, and maybe be banned from Oregon, and he’d never be able to see Ford’s grave again, and...

 

Stan choked back a sob. It was all just too much.

 

It wasn’t fair.

 

He should’ve been allowed to see Ford again. He should’ve been allowed to apologize, and maybe even get an apology, and explore these woods with his brother. He should’ve been allowed to do that. But all he’d gotten was a fucking ghost.

 

Stan had enough ghosts in his life, he thought to himself miserably, in the last few minutes that he allowed himself to sit down and feel pity, before he set to work on all the things he had to do. He’d never seen a ghost like this before, not a  _ physical _ one that talked and moved, but he had enough goddamn ghosts haunting his dreams. He didn’t need another one. He sure as hell didn’t need another one. And that it had to be  _ this _ ghost, the heaviest one of all, the one that had haunted him from the moment he drove the wrong way down a one-way street after his brother had closed the curtains on him... 

 

It figured. It just _ figured _ . And it didn’t even matter, really. Did he ever think he’d be able to talk to Ford again, ever in his life? Things never worked out like that. He should’ve known the next time he’d see Stanford would be when he was lying spread-eagled on the floor.

But still.

 

Some irrational, stupid, excessively sentimental part of himself still wished he could’ve at least gotten the chance to say goodbye.


End file.
